A phase-shift of enormous dimensions is underway in Asia. A marker is the May 19-20 Russia-ASEAN summit in Sochi, Russia, whose Leibnizian slogan is, “Towards Strategic Partnership for the Sake of the Common Good.” President Putin has announced that this summit will be the biggest international event in Russia in 2016. Most of the top leaders of the ten ASEAN countries are personally in attendance, and President Putin has held bilateral summits with each of them over the past week. The warmth and intimacy of these talks is as important as their concrete results of investment agreements, closer trade ties, and in many cases defense cooperation.

Jin Liqun, the Chinese President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), was also present for the summit, and discussed financing 16 projects in Russia’s Far East, worth a total of $8 billion. “That is BIG. That is BIG,” said Lyndon LaRouche.

More could be said, but when these are put together with other developments, what is in prospect is the closest, trusted cooperation between Russia, India, China and Japan in Asia, in the political, economic and security dimensions, which will revolutionize Asia and the world.

On the critical Japan flank, Michael Billington will report in the forthcoming (May 27) EIR, that “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 6 held an extremely successful summit with Putin in Sochi, despite Obama’s demand that he cancel the visit. Although it was not discussed publicly, sources close to the negotiations informed EIR that Abe and Putin agreed on a path towards solving the territorial dispute, which has prevented the signing of a peace treaty to end World War II between Russia and Japan. Publicly, the two leaders discussed a wide range of potential Japanese investments, mostly in the Russian Far East, in energy production, oil and gas, medical facilities, transportation, ports, and more. It should be noted that the launching of such extensive joint development would also have significant implications for the Korean Peninsula.

“Putin invited Abe to attend the second Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 2-3. Abe is expected to attend, and to hold a second summit with Putin. The Forum will bring together international business and government representatives to discuss the economic potential of Russia’s Far East and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as investment opportunities.”

“Is Japan Really Going to Do This?” Lyndon LaRouche asked today. “If so, that’s a very positive development for the entirety of Asia.” LaRouche said that this is what he had gotten into in the 1980s, when he visited Japan with his wife Helga. “We actually had, among certain people in Japan,— we had a group of people who were really on the ball, and had the ability to produce results,— but that got lost.”

Otherwise, avoid facile comparisons: There’s no way this Asia phase-shift can be compared with Obama, or anything like Obama. Quite the contrary. The United States economy is collapsed,— in the process of collapsing. This whole business of trying to gauge things, comparing one thing to another thing, doesn’t work any more. You can’t draw a comparison with Obama; this economy is kaput. Certain weapons being produced, but there’s nothing impressive about this thing,— it seems to be, but it’s not. He’s not credible at all; that’s quite negative.

On Obama’s continued outrageous cover-up of the 9/11 mass murders after almost 15 years, LaRouche said, “They’re all cowardly: either more or less. The whole thing, is that the British are the key thing. The whole problem is the British issue, the British Royal Family. Everything the Saudis were involved in, was based on the British Royal Family. That’s what these politicians do not emphasize, and that’s why they do it the way they do. They’re not going to attack the British interest. You have to think about what the financial interests are, from the British side, with respect to the United States. And that’s what they don’t talk about.”